Navy women's lacrosse shocks defending champ UNC

Navy, which defeated Penn and UMass last weekend, upset defending national champion North Carolina in the NCAA quarterfinals on Saturday. (courtesy/file photo by Debbie Latta)

Navy, which defeated Penn and UMass last weekend, upset defending national champion North Carolina in the NCAA quarterfinals on Saturday. (courtesy/file photo by Debbie Latta)

Brett FriedlanderFor The Capital

Aly Messinger knows a little something about going to women's lacrosse final fours.

The first-year Navy assistant coach went to two as a player at North Carolina, earning Most Outstanding Player honors last spring while leading the Tar Heels to a national championship. So when she gathered her current players at a team meeting Friday and told them what it takes to earn a trip of their own, the Midshipmen listened intently.

"She said you guys need to go out there and be relentless," goalie Ingrid Boyum said.

Boyum and her teammates heeded Messinger's advice, battling back from a three-goal second half deficit and an injury to their senior captain Saturday to upset defending national champion UNC, 16-14, in the NCAA tournament quarterfinals at Fetzer Field.

The victory sends Navy to the national semifinals for the first time in its 11-year women's lacrosse history, where it will play Boston College next Friday in Foxborough, Mass.

It's a matchup few outside of coach Cindy Timchal, her team and the large contingent of Navy fans in the stands on a sunny Saturday afternoon in North Carolina believed was possible against one of their sport's traditional heavyweights.

"We certainly beat a team with an unbelievable history of excellence in lacrosse," said Timchal, the winningest coach in the women's game and the winner of eight national championships at Maryland before coming to Annapolis in 2007.

"We've been playing good lacrosse, so we felt we could stay close and make it a good game. I don't think we even looked at the scoreboard to the end."

It's a good thing Timchal and the Mids didn't pay much attention to the scoreboard, because after leading nearly the entire game their chances at winning took a severe turn for the worse when UNC (17-3) ran off five straight goals to take a 13-10 lead.

To make matters worse, they lost their leader Meghan Hubley, who also happens to be their best defender, during that stretch.

It was while Hubley was being treated for an injury to her right leg that her teammates got together and reminded each other about being relentless.

And for the rest of the game, they were.

Boyum set the tone by making a spectacular kick save after UNC's Carly Reed got behind the defense on a restart for a one-on-one chance against the Navy goalie. Although the Tar Heels scored shortly thereafter to build the game's biggest lead, the Boyum's save seemed to energize the Mids.

UNC scored only once more over the final 17½ minutes, allowing Navy (18-4) to come roaring from behind.

"That was a huge momentum swing," said freshman Kelly Larkin, who had four goals and an assist for the Mids while becoming only the fourth player in program history to reach the 100-point mark in a season. "Having our senior defender go down, we immediately got into a huddle and I could tell the mentality of the game had changed. From that moment on we decided to fight and that this game was going to go our way. We were doing to dictate what was going to happen."

Larkin got the Navy comeback started by scoring on a feed from Jenna Collins.

Collins then netted one of her own in transition on a play started by defender Blake Smith, who carried the ball the length of the field before finding her open teammate cutting to the goal. Thirty seconds later, Collins' twin sister Julia beat Tar Heels goalie Caylee Waters to tie the score at 13.

UNC briefly regained the lead when Sammy Jo Tracy scored her fifth goal of the game. But with Jenna Collins taking charge on draw controls and her team going a perfect 9 for 9 on clears in the second half, the Mids kept the defending national champs on their heels for the remainder of the game.

"We had to get through that storm and believe we could, get the next draw, score offensively and etch away," Timchal said of her team's late surge. "The players just made a decision that we weren't going to say we've got to stop UNC. We just had to create our own flow for us."

That flow continued when Jenna Collins scored her third goal of the game, on a free position shot, with 11:37 remaining to tie the game at 14. Collins then assisted on the go-ahead goal by Meg O'Donnell four minutes later.

Boyum preserved the lead by robbing UNC's Molly Hendrick from point-blank range for her 11th and final save of the day before the Mids — with the help of two yellow cards on the Tar Heels — played keep away as the clock ran down.

Molly O'Sullivan sealed the most important victory in school history by tucking the ball into an unguarded net after UNC pulled its goalie with 15.3 seconds remaining. She was the seventh Navy player to score in the game.

"We thought coming in that this was a really dynamic offense that plays well together, with seven full threats and have a lot of belief in each other. I thought their whole group hurt us at some point today," Tar Heels coach Jenny Levy said. "... I thought they came in well prepared, with great energy. Seems like our country's in good hands going forward."